The Queen of England goes crown in hand to visit Turkey

All right, she doesn't actually have her crown in her hand but after watching the video and reading about the trip that was just the feeling I got. Once upon a time I used to think that letting Turkey into the EU was an okay idea, not now. Now that you mention it, that whole EU business wasn't such a hot idea, either.


And the fact that the Turkish First Lady wears the hijab despite Turkey's societal ban really ticks me off. (You know how I am about the wearing of the schmatta.) I used to be pretty cool with Turkey, but I'm just not feeling very charitable these days.

First, it was reading about the heinous murder of UK teenager, Jimmy Mizen. I read about his killing and thought it odd that there wasn't a description given of the killer. They were quick enough to point out the description of the "white middle aged male" eyewitness but were strangely silent about the suspect. I should have known. It wasn't until yesterday that it was revealed he was a 19 year old Turk named Jake Fahri. Although this BBC report of the suspect's arrest would have you believe he was murdered by a ghost. There is barely a mention of the perp in it, much less his description. The article did let us know that:

On Sunday, London Mayor Boris Johnson joined Christians to pray for an end to the violence in which 13 teenagers have died in the city in 2008.

I was not heartened. We need less kum ba yah and more Onward Christian Soldiers, people! So I was already in a funk when I stumbled across this article about The last church standing in North Cyprus. Okay, now I'm REALLY ticked off. You can bet your sweet life that this will not be a topic of discussion during the Queen's visit.

In the span of three decades under Turkish control, more than 530 churches and monasteries have been pillaged, vandalized, or destroyed in the northern area, according to The Republic of Cyprus.

“I cannot say that it (the destruction of churches) is encouraged openly by the Turkish government,” said Cyprus’s Ambassador to the United States, Andreas Kakouris, to The Christian Post. “All I can say is that it is taking place in the area that is under direct control of the Turkish military and I leave you to make your own conclusions from that.”

Maybe now you can understand why I am not in a very charitable mood about Turkey.

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